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Subjects

Abstract

Background/Objective

In obesity there is growing evidence for common mechanism between food intake regulation and substance use disorders, especially more attentional bias and less cognitive control. In the present study we investigated whether severely obese subjects with or without disordered eating exhibit electroencephalographic (EEG) event-related potential (ERP) modifications as observed in substance abusers.

Subjects/Methods

A total of 90 women were included; 30 in the normal-weight (NW) group (18.5 < BMI < 24.5 kg/m2; no food disinhibition or restriction on the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire) and 60 participants with BMI ≥ 35 kg/m2 were separated into two groups (n = 30): without food disinhibition (disinhibition score ≤8; ObFD− group) and with food disinhibition (score >8; ObFD+). Clinical and metabolic parameters as well as compartmental aspects (Eating Disorders Inventory-2, EDI-2) were assessed. Participants underwent an ERP recording with an auditory oddball paradigm.

Conclusions

The present study provides evidence for reduction of P300 and N200 amplitude in obese women and that N200 amplitude may be related to more disordered eating and eating disorder risk. This leads to consider attentional bias and response inhibition as core mechanisms in obesity and as possible targets for new therapeutic strategy.

Acknowledgements

We thank the Hospices Civils de Lyon for their financial support (young investigator award), the CRNH-RA clinical research team: Dr. N. Feugier for volunteer recruitment/follow-up; C. Maitrepierre, J. Peyrat, E. Bain for clinical/technical help; and M. Sothier for help in dietary analysis.

Funding

This study was supported by a young investigator award of the Hospices Civils de Lyon, France.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethics

All participants gave their written informed consent to participate in the study. The study sponsor was the Hospices Civils de Lyon, Lyon, France (a university hospital), and the study was performed after approval from the ethics committee (Comité de protection des personnes, CPP) and in accordance with the French Law on data protection and civil liberties and the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki.